Spanish court rules that Julio Iglesias is the father of a 43-year-old man

Updated 9:26 AM ET, Thu July 11, 2019

(CNN) - A Spanish judge has ruled that singer Julio Iglesias is the biological father of a 43-year-old Spanish man, in a judgment published on Wednesday.

Judge Jose Miguel Bort Ruiz highlighted a "very obvious physical resemblance" between the singer and Javier Sanchez-Santos, who has spoken publicly about his struggle to be recognized as Iglesias' biological son.

The judge in Valencia said there were enough clues to determine paternity, and cited Iglesias' refusal to "enable the collection of biological evidence" as one of the deciding factors.

Julio Iglesias' lawyer Fernando Falomir told CNN the singer would appeal the ruling and said Iglesias wouldn't refuse to submit to a DNA test under certain circumstances as part of the appeals process.

The judge said there was "evidence in the proceedings that, at the approximate time of the applicant's conception, there were certain contacts and dealings between the mother of the latter and that defendant."

Those contacts took place in July 1975, the court heard in the Spanish town of Sant Feliu de Guixols, and "make it not unlikely or unreasonable the possibility that sexual relations existed between them," the ruling said.

The judge also said a factor in his ruling was the testimony of Sanchez-Santos' mother, Maria Edite Santos, a Portuguese former dancer who has publicly spoken about her fight to have her son's paternity recognized. She provided "very specific data on the property, location and interior layout of the villa" where Julio Iglesias was staying at that time, the judge said.

Santos and her son have fought a three-decade paternity battle with Iglesias. In 1992, a Spanish judge ruled that the singer was indeed Sanchez-Santos' father, but the ruling was quashed on appeal in 1994, according to El Pais.